Tafsir
The span of a man’s life in this world is hardly a hundred years or even much less than that. After he dies, to all appearances it seems that he is finished once and for all, but the fact is that he exists even after death and rises again in a new world where he receives perpetual comfort or perpetual punishment. This is a very serious human problem and has always been the subject of discussion. In view of its importance, God arranged for tangible evidence in addition to logical arguments so that there should be no scope for doubt about ‘life after death’. Such tangible evidence has been presented in different forms in different periods. In the fifth century A.D., the emergence of ‘the Men of the Cave’ from the cave after ‘death’ is an extraordinary incident of this kind. In the present age, the researches of meta-science have uncovered instances of a similar nature which establish the veracity of the theory of life after death. When the Men of the Cave emerged from their cave, the condition of their city had completely changed. It has been estimated that it was in the year 250 A.D. that they left their city of Ephesus and went into hiding in the cave. At that time a pagan ruler Desius was ruling in that area. In the meantime, due to the efforts of the Christian missionaries, the Roman King, Constantine, embraced Christianity, and thereafter, Christianity spread over the entire Roman domain. The Men of the Cave returned to their city in the year 447 A.D., at which time Christianity had become the dominant religion in their city. When the seven young men came out of the cave and it was confirmed by means of slabs kept in the Royal Treasury and by other means, that these were the very individuals who had had to leave their city on account of their Christian beliefs, paganism being prevalent there, they immediately became the centre of the people’s devotion. The new Roman Ruler, Theodosus, himself went on foot to see them and seek their blessings. When they died, a place of worship was built at their cave as a memorial.